The contribution of various types of activities to recovery

Abstract

Stress and fatigue caused by work require daily recovery periods to offset future deleterious consequences to mental and physical health. The aim, therefore, of the current study was to gain insight into recovery processes during a normal week. The main hypotheses were that more time spent on work and work-related activities will have a negative impact on recovery, while more time spent on specific leisure activities would have a beneficial impact on recovery. Using diaries, 46 respondents (average age of 35) provided daily measures of fatigue, sleep, and time spent on recovery activities over 7 days. Recovery activities included time spent on activities that were social, physical, and work-related. Results indicated that whilst low effort and social activities are nonbeneficial to recovery, physical activities significantly predict recovery (i.e., the former increase fatigue whilst the latter decrease fatigue). Sleep quality also emerges as a significant predictor of recovery. The weekend respite appears important to recovery; however, the effect seems already to wane on Sunday evening in anticipation of the Monday workload. The article provides insights into leisure activities and the experience of fatigue.

Notes

¹These prototypical activities are based on those previously used with minor additions (cf. Sonnentag, 2001).

²Copy obtained for use in the present research from the authors: J. H. M. M Vercoulen and G. Bleijenberg, University Hospital, Nijmegen.

³Cronbach's alpha levels are for CIS scores on Wednesday, giving an indication of how consistently fatigue levels are reported. Note: Alpha levels are similar to those previously reported, e.g., α = .9 in Beurskens et al. (2000).

⁴One-sample t-test with the mean statistic of 15.8 utilized by Cropley et al. (1999) to define those in high strain occupations.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Fred R. H. Zijlstra

The authors would like to thank Dr A. Martin and the Occupational Health Team for helping to secure access to respondents. Gratitude is also extended to all those anonymous respondents who diligently kept diaries for a week, despite no obvious reward for their efforts. Furthermore we would like to thank the anonymous referees for their valuable comments and suggestions.